By Russ Britt

The race to become the first to market with a hepatitis C treatment in pill form heated up some more Thursday as Gilead Sciences Inc., which many say has the inside track, announced positive test results from its study.

Bloomberg News

Machine purifies Gilead’s hepatitis C treatment.

Gilead
/quotes/zigman/72849/quotes/nls/gildGILD said it was initiating a third Phase 3 study after earlier results showed its treatment could cure virtually all hepatitis C patients with a relatively short program of 8 to 12 weeks.

Shares of Gilead jumped more than 5% on the news to $52.79. Gilead is using a combination of two medications, sofosbuvir and ledipasvir — and in some cases ribavirin — once a day. Patients who used the combinations of drugs were cured at least 95% of the time with some tests showed a 100% success rate.

“We believe this data greatly strengthens [Gilead's] position,” analyst Mark Schoenebaum of ISI Group said in a note to clients. “We believe the stock will be up meaningfully on this news.”

Gilead is believed to have the inside track because it is deeper into test results and appears to finding success in shorter treatment periods than others in the race. AbbVie was off roughly 2% while Bristol-Myers was up marginally and Merck inched down slightly.

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